Petrichor
by RubySoh
Summary: Missing scene one shot inspired by the DA movie. Anna returns to the cottage after getting caught in the rain.


**Let's face it, who wasn't hanging off their chairs in the cinema waiting for this scene that didn't happen but absolutely should have?**

**No real movie spoilers, unless "it rains" is a spoiler. The rest is entirely from my own mindbrain.**

* * *

Lady Mary insisted that they drop a drenched Anna off at the cottages on their way to the Abbey. Normally she would have protested at the impertinence of leaving her mistress early, but she was so bone-cold under her soaked coat and hat that at that moment she could have kissed her.

Soaked from head to foot and stumbling in dark puddles, she'd barely turned towards the cottage door before John was throwing it open, towel in hand. She almost flung herself past him into the warmth of the hallway.

"Off," he announced, hooking the towel over his arm and undoing her coat buttons. "Then sit by the fire. You'll catch your death."

Anna nodded, unable to speak as her teeth chattered. John moved to the buttons on her dress - which was just as well as her trembling fingers were more of a hindrance than anything else - and she fumbled with her shoes and stockings as he wrapped her in the towel. It was warm, presumably from hanging in front of the fire.

She didn't think she could possibly love him any more.

"Johnny - "

"Is in bed," John said firmly. "Which is where you're going in a minute. Go and sit down. I'll make tea."

He hovered behind her as she padded over and knelt on the rug and then disappeared into the kitchen, clattering around in the cupboards as he fished out the teacups. Pulling the towel more firmly around her shoulders, Anna edged as close as she could get to the fireplace without setting herself ablaze, and shivered in the warm light.

Earlier that evening she'd been slightly taken aback to hear Lady Mary address her as a friend, rather than simply an employee. Or rather, she was surprised that she'd said it out loud. It was something she felt had long been unspoken between them for a long time, but it was nice to hear it nevertheless.

Unfortunately, it made the conversation she wanted to have with her husband that much more difficult.

She was mulling over this as John shuffled through, cane abandoned, with a teacup in each hand. She took them both as he stiffly lowered himself to the floor beside her.

"Better?" He said, taking his cup once he was settled.

She nodded as she took a sip. "Much. Thank you."

He smiled at her, that smile she loved that made the corners of his eyes crease, but lost in her thoughts as she was it took her a second to respond. It didn't go unnoticed.

"Anna?"

"Do you ever think," she said softly, "about the future?"

"In what way?"

"I mean our dream. Our hotel. We've been sitting on our savings for a while now."

John looked at her sharply, but there was no surprise in his expression. Anna ran a finger around the rim of her teacup. They'd had this conversation before, most recently in the aftermath of Johnny's birth, the two of them lovestruck and unable to bear the idea of being separated from their son, even for a few hours. Eventually they'd dismissed it, to be picked up again at a later date when they weren't settling into family life.

Johnny was a well-behaved a little boy, a credit to them (as Nanny was so fond of telling them) – quiet and watchful like his father, with a mischievous sense of humour that John swore was the double of his mother's. She knew he'd thrive, helping out in a hotel when he was old enough, trailing after his father like a shadow. Being around them more than morning and evening, which maybe the odd fifteen minutes during the day if their workload allowed.

"I've been thinking about it for a while now," she went on when he didn't say anything. "And then tonight...I've loved it here, it was the first place I felt safe after..."

She trailed off. They rarely spoke of her stepfather, short of a conversation in the dead of night a few days after he'd returned to her. She'd wept then, as memories she'd long since pushed away reared up, clutching at John as though she'd float away if she didn't. He'd simply held her against his chest, until her tears were ones of love and gratefulness for her husband and she'd cried them against his neck as she'd pressed kisses there.

She was jolted out of her thoughts as John leaned over and curled his fingers around hers, her small hand engulfed in his large one.

"I put Johnny to bed, and he was asking for you – I know it's not your fault," he added quickly, and Anna realised he must have seen her face fall. "But it got me to thinking. He's nearly two, and we barely see him. And we've already missed so much."

She knew what he was referring to. They'd discovered Johnny could walk when she went to collect him from the nursery and he met her at the door, his first shaky steps only witnessed by Master George and Nanny. Anna had beamed and fussed over him, ignoring the knot of grief in her chest, and then wept solidly in John's arms once they'd put their son to bed.

"It'd be a wrench to leave," she admitted. "But you're right. I think he sees more of Nanny than he does us, and that's not right. I always wanted his childhood to be like mine, before my father died anyway."

"And better than mine," John murmured, looking into the fire. Anna squeezed his hand, and was rewarded with a crooked smile.

"Let's go to Thirsk on our next half day," he suggested. "We can take Johnny with us, go to a tea room for a treat. Maybe go to the park. He'd like that."

"He would," she agreed. "He's got more energy than I think Nanny knows what to do with at the moment."

She saw a flicker pass over John's face, and she knew what it was. He and Johnny couldn't possibly love each other any more, and yet she knew he still berated himself for not being able to keep up with their son.

"Come on," he said before she could scold him, pushing himself heavily to his feet and taking her empty cup. "I've set the fire in the bedroom as well, and warmed the sheets."

"John Bates, I could kiss you," Anna said as she stood up.

And when he returned from the kitchen, she did just that.

* * *

The fire in their bedroom fireplace looked inviting, but Anna took a moment to slip into her son's bedroom. The storm seemed to have cleared, and a gap in the curtains threw a sliver of moonlight across the floor, illuminating Johnny's sleeping face. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

He was so like John in sleep, hair tousled and face innocent. She did so love watching them together, her son and her husband. Often they'd settle in front of the fire, Johnny curled on his father's knee in the firelight. John would read the paper, the low rumble of his voice soothing as she did some mending at the little table. Johnny was too little to understand the news articles John read to him but he listened with rapt attention, a serious expression on his face that was the mirror of his father's.

It would hurt to leave Downton, and the strange, bustling family she'd found downstairs, and the friendship of her seemingly cold mistress for which she would be eternally grateful. But Johnny was fast losing his baby features and turning into a little boy, and the thought of him growing up under the watchful eye of someone else eclipsed all the sorrow.

He snuffled slightly in his sleep, thumb lodged in his mouth.

"You are so loved," Anna murmured, ghosting a hand over his hair. "My darling boy. So loved."

"So are you," John whispered behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. "By both of us."

She leaned back against his chest and lost herself in the moment, the heady warmth after the storm, their future laid out in front of them.


End file.
